***Her hair was still wet from her morning shower and hung in thin and clumpy blond strands. Steve could not see her face clearly, but she knew without a word from his mouth that the bags under her eyes were only deeper and darker than they were two nights ago. She gathered the green and pink printed and tasseled blanket tighter around her shoulders, curling her thin toes into the nearly pastel gray and sandy tan of the pebbly earth beneath her. The ground was cold and feeling her blood chilling in the soles of her feet before it rushed back to her heart and head was a delicious relief. The shower water was never cold enough inside the cottage. "Hey," she paused to gather her vocal cords more tightly under control, "did you think about what we talked about last night? At all?" She did not look back at him.
The heat of the enormous fireplace, a fireplace large enough to roast an animal that could feed a large family, billowed out of the front door and wrapped around the twin piers of his plaid pajama panted, legs before spilling a short way across the ground and vanishing. He thumbed the thick band as he answered, "I did." He sipped again.***
"What are you doing?" Steve stood at the front door of their large, ranch style, and lavish even by valley standards, cottage. Shelly did not answer. He crossed his arms, careful not to spill the large crimson red mug of hot coffee he held pinched between a thumb and index finger. He pursed his lips and blew gently over the rim of the mug to cool the top most layer of the slightly foamy and very hot drink. With two quick back and forth swipes across the bristled edges of his salt and pepper mustache he confirmed that Shelly had indeed done it again. If coffee could be considered an art form she would be a prodigy, if not for her age. He sipped and then sipped again. "It's too wet out for sunrise," he half shouted. The humidity in the Hudson valley was fairly high for the streak of crisp weather that seemed yet to get both feet out of the door on its way farther north. Once the sun came over the ridge it would burn off the fog, but the sunrise itself would be little more than a change in brightness instead of the usual stereoscopic light show.
The fog hung in fairly thick, translucent, blue sheets across his field of vision. Near the edge, where the fog truly swallowed up the landscape, stood Shelly. He could not tell if she wore shoes or not, but the shore line of the river was one of the nicer bits, composed of shingle pebble, to be found in the valley. A few paces farther from her, and invisible from where Steve stood, was the gentle whisper of the lapping river water, still ice cold from the dead of winter that was only beginning to release its grip. He sipped again, shifting from the left jamb of the door to the right. A stray splinter pulled a fuzzy puff of the brown and pale green high end blend of angel soft fabric away from his elbow, but he did not notice. "Coffee's great as usual," he offered, hooking his index finger through the mugs grand and looping handle to free his thumb to caress the thick gold wedding band he insisted on wearing at all times.
"Thanks, Stevie." She shot a finger's snap quick glance over her shoulder and immediately cast her eyes back to the river. Her hair was still wet from her morning shower and hung in thin and clumpy blond strands. Steve could not see her face clearly, but she knew without a word from his mouth that the bags under her eyes were only deeper and darker than they were two nights ago. She gathered the green and pink printed and tasseled blanket tighter around her shoulders, curling her thin toes into the nearly pastel gray and sandy tan of the pebbly earth beneath her. The ground was cold and feeling her blood chilling in the soles of her feet before it rushed back to her heart and head was a delicious relief. The shower water was never cold enough inside the cottage. "Hey," she paused to gather her vocal cords more tightly under control, "did you think about what we talked about last night? At all?" She did not look back at him.
The heat of the enormous fireplace, a fireplace large enough to roast an animal that could feed a large family, billowed out of the front door and wrapped around the twin piers of his plaid pajama panted, legs before spilling a short way across the ground and vanishing. He thumbed the thick band as he answered, "I did." He sipped again.
Shelly turned her brown pleading eyes to the glowing mouth of the cottage and the strong, nearly hulking, silhouette of Steve, but there was still not enough light for him to make out the details of her face. From where Shelly stood, the fog tried to swallow Steve and the cottage whole, but the sprawling thing of dead, varnished, wood and glowing light was simply too large and, try as it might, the thing remained. She could feel her voice rising inside of her like a polished steel ball, but she knew, from the previous night and the night before it that if she let it out it would splash in ugly disjointed droplets of poison mercury and Steve would gather it up for her and push it back inside her. He would show her the thing was not what she knew it was. But she knew what the ball of stomach churning hot metal was. She knew. She quickly turned her eyes back to the river.
"Shelly, hon, this is our honeymoon. We earned this." Shelly heard him clearly enough. The fading blue fog had a way of holding his voice like a glimmering bearing circling a rounded dish. She could see clear across the river. Ice floes from farther north jostled each other like great white plates of dense china as they slid across the nearly black surface of the river. "We've been married nearly a year now, and I for one would like to take a minute and celebrate that." He sipped again. She heard him clearly enough. "You hated the other house, so I brought you out here to a place I practically built myself. I mean, its just like where you used to live. I don't see what the problem is," he trailed off, but Shelly did not pick up the thread. He narrowed his eyes, the crows feet on his face growing deeper. He sipped again.
Almost on the opposite bank a something lay atop one of the sheets of ice. Shelly raised herself nearly on tip toe to get a better look. "Look," Steve uncrossed his arms and shuffled his bare feet back into the fur lined moccasins he gingerly removed only minutes before,"Shelly, we'll head back in a few more days." Unconsciously she reached a thin hand outward from underneath the blanket she held tightly around her shoulders, reaching out for the something. It was a girl, a young girl in a black knit cap and tiny red pea coat, the thick lenses of her spectacles askew on her face. Her mouth hung open as though she were somewhere mid sentence. The pink boots she recieved for her birthday matched the green houndstooth snow pants in a way only her once rosey cheeks and button nose would have allowed.
She must have fallen and hit her head on the ground, on the ice. "I want us to be closer. If we ever want a shot at," he trailed off again. "Look, I'll be inside. Breakfast will be on the table in a little bit." The white sheet the girl's limp body lay on struck the slick hard hump of a boulder lodged in the river bed, rose up and cracked with a tooth rattling pop, spilling the tiny frame beneath the black ripples. "You should come inside, okay? You'll get sick if you keep this up the rest of the week."
"Steve, please," she whispered, her throat was hot and tight and nearly strangled the words as they stumbled out. They fell on a beautifully hand carved, and very much deaf, door. "I don't need a prince." The words of her promise filled her like a fistful of thumb tacks can fill an open mouth. She knew and had known from the day Clara died she would never really love Steve. Her five year old daughter deserved a castle in the clouds after her first husband left. She knew part of herself drowned in Steve's estate pond in Maine 12 months ago. Part of her drowned every day and every night since then, and as beads of sweat broke across her upper lip and along the bridge of her slender nose she shuddered from the crown of her blond head to the heels of her pale feet.
She already went without sleep two nights before and would do so again. "Scars never heal if you don't let them," Steve nearly deafened her as he shook her by the shoulders the previous evening. "I love you, Shelly. I want you to understand that. You need me now more than ever," the words felt like white hot rail spikes through her chest as he hammered them into her.
The heat inside her was nearly unbearable day after day, but the water was so cool this time of year. She could see each one of her breaths as they left her body. Closing her eyes, she stiffly turned her white robed form toward the wide deck and glowing bay windows of the wide entryway of the cottage. With effort she took one step and then another. Slowly at first and then uncontrollably, tears began their silent downward cascade and in the receding fog banks and swelling light of a new day predators on the wing began to call hungrily one to another.
The heat of the enormous fireplace, a fireplace large enough to roast an animal that could feed a large family, billowed out of the front door and wrapped around the twin piers of his plaid pajama panted, legs before spilling a short way across the ground and vanishing. He thumbed the thick band as he answered, "I did." He sipped again.***
"What are you doing?" Steve stood at the front door of their large, ranch style, and lavish even by valley standards, cottage. Shelly did not answer. He crossed his arms, careful not to spill the large crimson red mug of hot coffee he held pinched between a thumb and index finger. He pursed his lips and blew gently over the rim of the mug to cool the top most layer of the slightly foamy and very hot drink. With two quick back and forth swipes across the bristled edges of his salt and pepper mustache he confirmed that Shelly had indeed done it again. If coffee could be considered an art form she would be a prodigy, if not for her age. He sipped and then sipped again. "It's too wet out for sunrise," he half shouted. The humidity in the Hudson valley was fairly high for the streak of crisp weather that seemed yet to get both feet out of the door on its way farther north. Once the sun came over the ridge it would burn off the fog, but the sunrise itself would be little more than a change in brightness instead of the usual stereoscopic light show.
The fog hung in fairly thick, translucent, blue sheets across his field of vision. Near the edge, where the fog truly swallowed up the landscape, stood Shelly. He could not tell if she wore shoes or not, but the shore line of the river was one of the nicer bits, composed of shingle pebble, to be found in the valley. A few paces farther from her, and invisible from where Steve stood, was the gentle whisper of the lapping river water, still ice cold from the dead of winter that was only beginning to release its grip. He sipped again, shifting from the left jamb of the door to the right. A stray splinter pulled a fuzzy puff of the brown and pale green high end blend of angel soft fabric away from his elbow, but he did not notice. "Coffee's great as usual," he offered, hooking his index finger through the mugs grand and looping handle to free his thumb to caress the thick gold wedding band he insisted on wearing at all times.
"Thanks, Stevie." She shot a finger's snap quick glance over her shoulder and immediately cast her eyes back to the river. Her hair was still wet from her morning shower and hung in thin and clumpy blond strands. Steve could not see her face clearly, but she knew without a word from his mouth that the bags under her eyes were only deeper and darker than they were two nights ago. She gathered the green and pink printed and tasseled blanket tighter around her shoulders, curling her thin toes into the nearly pastel gray and sandy tan of the pebbly earth beneath her. The ground was cold and feeling her blood chilling in the soles of her feet before it rushed back to her heart and head was a delicious relief. The shower water was never cold enough inside the cottage. "Hey," she paused to gather her vocal cords more tightly under control, "did you think about what we talked about last night? At all?" She did not look back at him.
The heat of the enormous fireplace, a fireplace large enough to roast an animal that could feed a large family, billowed out of the front door and wrapped around the twin piers of his plaid pajama panted, legs before spilling a short way across the ground and vanishing. He thumbed the thick band as he answered, "I did." He sipped again.
Shelly turned her brown pleading eyes to the glowing mouth of the cottage and the strong, nearly hulking, silhouette of Steve, but there was still not enough light for him to make out the details of her face. From where Shelly stood, the fog tried to swallow Steve and the cottage whole, but the sprawling thing of dead, varnished, wood and glowing light was simply too large and, try as it might, the thing remained. She could feel her voice rising inside of her like a polished steel ball, but she knew, from the previous night and the night before it that if she let it out it would splash in ugly disjointed droplets of poison mercury and Steve would gather it up for her and push it back inside her. He would show her the thing was not what she knew it was. But she knew what the ball of stomach churning hot metal was. She knew. She quickly turned her eyes back to the river.
"Shelly, hon, this is our honeymoon. We earned this." Shelly heard him clearly enough. The fading blue fog had a way of holding his voice like a glimmering bearing circling a rounded dish. She could see clear across the river. Ice floes from farther north jostled each other like great white plates of dense china as they slid across the nearly black surface of the river. "We've been married nearly a year now, and I for one would like to take a minute and celebrate that." He sipped again. She heard him clearly enough. "You hated the other house, so I brought you out here to a place I practically built myself. I mean, its just like where you used to live. I don't see what the problem is," he trailed off, but Shelly did not pick up the thread. He narrowed his eyes, the crows feet on his face growing deeper. He sipped again.
Almost on the opposite bank a something lay atop one of the sheets of ice. Shelly raised herself nearly on tip toe to get a better look. "Look," Steve uncrossed his arms and shuffled his bare feet back into the fur lined moccasins he gingerly removed only minutes before,"Shelly, we'll head back in a few more days." Unconsciously she reached a thin hand outward from underneath the blanket she held tightly around her shoulders, reaching out for the something. It was a girl, a young girl in a black knit cap and tiny red pea coat, the thick lenses of her spectacles askew on her face. Her mouth hung open as though she were somewhere mid sentence. The pink boots she recieved for her birthday matched the green houndstooth snow pants in a way only her once rosey cheeks and button nose would have allowed.
She must have fallen and hit her head on the ground, on the ice. "I want us to be closer. If we ever want a shot at," he trailed off again. "Look, I'll be inside. Breakfast will be on the table in a little bit." The white sheet the girl's limp body lay on struck the slick hard hump of a boulder lodged in the river bed, rose up and cracked with a tooth rattling pop, spilling the tiny frame beneath the black ripples. "You should come inside, okay? You'll get sick if you keep this up the rest of the week."
"Steve, please," she whispered, her throat was hot and tight and nearly strangled the words as they stumbled out. They fell on a beautifully hand carved, and very much deaf, door. "I don't need a prince." The words of her promise filled her like a fistful of thumb tacks can fill an open mouth. She knew and had known from the day Clara died she would never really love Steve. Her five year old daughter deserved a castle in the clouds after her first husband left. She knew part of herself drowned in Steve's estate pond in Maine 12 months ago. Part of her drowned every day and every night since then, and as beads of sweat broke across her upper lip and along the bridge of her slender nose she shuddered from the crown of her blond head to the heels of her pale feet.
She already went without sleep two nights before and would do so again. "Scars never heal if you don't let them," Steve nearly deafened her as he shook her by the shoulders the previous evening. "I love you, Shelly. I want you to understand that. You need me now more than ever," the words felt like white hot rail spikes through her chest as he hammered them into her.
The heat inside her was nearly unbearable day after day, but the water was so cool this time of year. She could see each one of her breaths as they left her body. Closing her eyes, she stiffly turned her white robed form toward the wide deck and glowing bay windows of the wide entryway of the cottage. With effort she took one step and then another. Slowly at first and then uncontrollably, tears began their silent downward cascade and in the receding fog banks and swelling light of a new day predators on the wing began to call hungrily one to another.
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